


First Foot

by Lunik



Category: Norse Mythology -- Fandom, Thor (2011)
Genre: Community: norsekink, Cultural Differences, F/M, Flash Fic, Holidays, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:59:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunik/pseuds/Lunik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki and Sigyn are determined to blend in on Midgard. If that means googling the words "Holiday tradition" and seeing what comes up, so be it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Foot

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](http://norsekink.livejournal.com/6689.html?thread=12875809#t12875809) flash fic prompt on the Thor kink meme.
> 
> I realised at some point after writing that I didn't actually use anything that specifically makes this Marvel!Loki (or Marvel!Sigyn), and so I have tagged this under Norse Mythology as well as Thor fic. It was written with superheroes in mind, but works for either or both. So, yeah :D

It was new years' day and the drinking technically hadn't actually stopped since new years' eve, so Helen didn't have to feel scandalized at her own boldness. She had switched from brandy over to Bucks Fizz, which was really just mimosas anyway - it wasn't just socially acceptable to be drinking mimosas at eight in the morning, it was downright cosmopolitan.

And the family were gathered around, even Mandy's eldest, Ashley had come all the way from university in Edinburgh for Christmas. Helen beamed, her glass of Bucks Fizz in hand. She was starting the year as she intended to go on, and everything was right with the world.

Her glass was getting perilously close to being empty as she listened to Ashley's young friend (they really were very close, for two girls. Helen wondered if it would be entirely polite to ask them to stop pretending not to be lovers, but that was probably the mimosas talking) tell her about university life, and she was just thinking about refilling it at eight in the morning when the doorbell sounded.

Eight in the morning on a bank holiday was not a time at which Helen was accustomed to receiving visitors. She excused herself to open the door, but half the family came with her anyway. When she opened the door it was to find Loge Lyesmith and his wife Sigyn standing on her welcome mat, beaming. He was carrying a large cardboard box under one arm, and she was wearing tinsel in her hair. The strange couple were new to the village - they were _Icelandic_ or some such Scandinavian type, but they were pretending to be English and Helen wasn't entirely sure she approved. Because they were trying so hard to be English, and because they were so very not English, there had been a few... misunderstandings about the Christmas period. Loge and Sigyn swore that they were all unintentional.

Helen was in such an advanced state of merriment that she couldn't quite stop her hand from jumping to her throat. "Oh!" she said in a voice that was less delighted than she wanted it to be. "It's you two!"

"It's us two!" agreed Loge, throwing his hands wide. "Hello, Mrs Atkins. We've come to first foot you!"

There was a choked sound behind Helen, and she wasn't sure which cousin or niece or nephew had made it. Loge and Sigyn looked at each other.

"My husband is tall, with dark hair," said Sigyn. "This makes it our duty to the community to do the first footing! Doesn't it?"

"Well, I'm certainly the tallest. And most men in the village have fair hair. That's terribly unlucky. Really, imagine how many houses must have had blondes as the first to cross the threshold last year! We're here, Mrs Atkins, to lift your curse!"

"It's all here." Sigyn held out her hand, with a mobile phone in it. Helen had to step back to focus on the screen. "It's Wikipedia. First Foot, the tradition! It's a tradition, so here we are!"

Helen knew all about first footing, of course. They hadn't made any plans for it this year, for the same reasons Loge had just mentioned. Strangely, it hadn't occurred to anyone in the village to ask the foreign couple to do the deed.

"...May I come in, Mrs Atkins?" asked Loge, and Helen realised she had been standing in the doorway, staring. She hastily stepped aside and gestured him in, then wondered if that was the right thing to do. Politeness got the better of her. Loge beamed.

"Excellent! I've brought gifts, I believe that's appropriate?" He stepped over the doorjamb with a flourish and Sigyn set off a party popper over his head. Confetti floated down and got caught in his hair (and all over Helen's carpet, but she didn't say a word).

"Hooray!" cheered Sigyn, and a few of the cousins behind Helen raised a small cheer as well. It must have been cousins because none of Helen's close family would encourage this sort of behaviour. Maybe Ashley and her lesbian were behind it all.

"Yes, hooray," agreed Loge. "Now. I have brought..." he dug into his cardboard box. "I believe bread is the traditional gift-"

"It does say so on Wikipedia," interjected Sigyn.

"-but I have a confession to make. Both my wife and I are terrible at baking bread. Oh!" He noticed Ashley in the corner had taken out her own mobile phone and was recording video of the whole event. Graciously, he turned to present a better picture. "Be sure and get my good side! And if you post this on the internet, tag it _fimbulwinter_ \- the right people will notice it that way."

Sigyn laughed. "Peacock," she muttered fondly, and Loge swatted at her.

"Quiet, you. It's new year. I have to start the way I intend to go on - that's tradition." He leaned in to kiss her lips, in full view of everyone, then went back to his box as if nothing had happened. "So, we're both awful at baking bread, so we brought you pie instead!"

He lifted a small golden brown pie out of the box, and Helen immediately forgot how charming their young lovers act was. "I don't want it!" she cried without thinking. Sigyn looked hurt.

Loge held out the pie to her anyway. "No, no-no, I promise," he said. "This time there's no live birds in it! Just cherries."

"I put them in myself," offered Sigyn earnestly. Helen still looked uncertainly at the proffered pastry until Mandy stepped in.

"Here, I'll take that," she said. "Sorry mister Lyesmith. My Mum's been indulging a little. It is the holidays."

"Loge, please." He waved a hand. "Oh, but if you've been making merry, Mrs Atkins - here, you can have the next one!" He handed the box off to his wife and swung a sack from over his shoulder which Helen hadn't even noticed and which made him look more than a little like a younger, sexier Santa Claus. The fact that without the box Helen could see his cheerful red jumper with a reindeer knitted into it didn't help at all.

"Here!" he announced again, holding out a bottle. "It's whiskey! I'm... sure that's lovely. And, here!" He thrust the whiskey into her hands and followed it with a black dusty nugget. "Coal as well! And..." On top of the whiskey and coal came a salt shaker in the shape of a snowflake. "Salt! So, that's... gifts representative of food, good cheer, flavour, warmth... how am I doing, dear heart?"

Sigyn was back on her mobile phone, checking through a list. "Top pocket, darling," she called. Loge checked his pocket and snapped his fingers.

"Of course, financial prosperity. Here, catch!" He pulled out a small silver coin and flipped it spinning into the air. Swiftly he ducked aside to sling an arm around his wife's shoulders and let it fall - Ashley's friend was the first to leap in and catch it.

"It's a crown! Look, it's like a coin _and_ a symbol of the ruling classes!"

"That's... very kind of you, mister Lyesmith..." Helen made out, but he interrupted her, "Please, what did I say? Call me Loge."

"This is more than just a crown, Loge," said Ashley's friend slowly. "This is an eighteen-forty-four cinquefoil. Look, it's got the british arms on a laurel - one of the first to do that. This is worth, like, a hundred quid!"

"Oh, don't be silly, of course it's not. A hundred?" Loge nudged Sigyn with his elbow and they both laughed pleasantly. "That's at least twenty five hundred, thirty if you can get the right buyer. Look at the condition of that thing! Oh, best be careful with it..."

Every jaw in the room hit the carpet. Nobody moved but Mr and Mrs Lyesmith, who rearranged their boxes and sacks between the two of them and cheerfully waved goodbye. "Well, must be off!" called Sigyn happily. "There's other houses to visit - First footers... Away!"

They exited the house giggling, and Helen stared at Ashley's friend. She slowly lifted the coin and dropped it with exaggerated care into Helen's palm. "By the way, Mrs Atkins," she said as she presented her with the priceless coin, "I'm dating your granddaughter. Happy new year!"

Helen cracked open the whiskey bottle.


End file.
